Madrid
— — the city that stays up late on purpose.
Not only on a wall.
“The highest capital in Europe, at 667 metres on the Castilian plateau. The streets at midnight are still full. Children, families, terraces of older couples sharing a plate. Madrid takes its time. From the Plaza Mayor down Calle Mayor to the Palacio Real the buildings are honey-coloured stone, and the sky stays a particular blue late into the evening.
Madrid, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Madrid is the capital of Spain and, at 667 metres above sea level, the highest capital in the European Union. The city sits on the Castilian plateau on the Manzanares River, with the Sierra de Guadarrama rising 50 kilometres to the north. Roughly 3.3 million people live within the city limits; six million more in the surrounding region. The historic centre runs from the Plaza Mayor, completed in 1619 under Felipe III, through the Puerta del Sol to the Royal Palace — the largest functioning royal palace in Europe, at 135,000 square metres of floor space.
The Madrid sky is unusually clear. Velázquez kept his court studio here because the light on the plateau is dry and luminous — the same light that fills the Las Meninas canvas at the Prado. The sun sits high through the summer; the city reaches over 35°C in July and August. In winter the air is crisp and the sky often cobalt. The blue hour stretches long because of the altitude. From the rooftop terraces around Gran Vía the sun-down register holds for nearly an hour.
The Prado, on Paseo del Prado, holds more than 8,000 paintings including Velázquez's Las Meninas, Goya's Black Paintings, and Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. It opens 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed on 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December. The Reina Sofía around the corner houses Picasso's Guernica. The Retiro, just east, runs 1.4 square kilometres of formal gardens and the Crystal Palace of 1887. Late lunch is from 2 p.m.; dinner rarely begins before 9.